What’s the saltwater equivalent of a trout bum? Whatever it is, Henkie Altena of Karoolskraal Fly Fishing Camp, a living, walking legend of the Karoo and Overberg fly fishing scenes fit the description. We caught up with him for our issue 18 Lifer profile. The first fish I can remember catching on fly, was a [...]
Over the past decade I’ve had the privilege of working with some of South Africa’s finest action- and adventure-sports athletes. Seriously bad ass cats who make a living from their respective sports. Surfers, rally drivers, climbers, BASE jumpers, FMX dudes, triathletes and trail runners. Among others. While they’re all characters in their own right and [...]
Neil Rowe and I were discussing grunter at dinner on Alphonse Island when he mentioned that he’d (for many years) had quite good success fishing tandem prawn fly rigs in the Breede River. He described the ‘top’ fly as a standard floating prawn-type fly, such as the foam-backed prawn flipper or the deerhair prawns, with [...]
Many people – mostly those in the full-time employ of someone else – think freelancers are always on holiday. Truth is, when you work for yourself you never really have ‘leave’ in the traditional sense. No graft, no pay. Sometimes then, you just have to disappear. This is a story of one of those days. Actually [...]
Everyone has heard of the great Wildebeest Migration through Tanzania’s Serengeti and up into Kenya. This spectacular phenomenon is actually more than ‘just’ a wildebeest migration as includes (in far lesser numbers) zebra, as well as Thompson's and Grant's gazelles follow the trek for better grazing and water. As spectacular as it is in sheer [...]
It’s not everyday that student becomes tutor, but last year I had the pleasure of treating my brother Harry to some grunter fishing with my buddy Mike and me. Harry was my fly fishing mentor, and whenever we go fishing together, I’m the one who raids his fly-boxes and rips him for tips and advice. [...]
My group of fishing buddies caught our first grunter of the season (post September) while on a trip a few days ago. Mike Gradidge, Jannie Visser and I decided to hit the two estuaries most accessible to Cape Town in search of our spotted quarry. Mike decided to stop at the smaller estuary en route [...]
A while back I took a paddle on Ian Kitching's SUP Paddlefisher. What an awesome piece of equipment. Below is a short POV of Ian landing a cracking grunter from one of his SUPs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7i-HLiGpGk check Ian's work out at http://www.supfisher.co.za/
So you have a super spooky fish, considered almost impossible to fool on any artificial. Not surprisingly it becomes a highly sought after species. Then you hear some totally outlandish story, about that specie feeding carefree on some ridiculous fly. Permit on floating crabs, to Spotted Grunter on floating prawns. The floating prawn story isn't [...]
If you've spent some time in the Garden Route over the past year the chances are you would have seen Ian Kitching fishing the lagoons on his awesome stand up fishers -props- http://www.supfisher.co.za/. Hes also caught some giant Grunter on surface flies. I would be jealous if i wasn't so damn impressed. Quite possibly the [...]
